MA Live Art in partnership with Queen Mary University of London

We are delighted to announce applications are now invited for the full-time programme starting in September 2021.

MA Live Art is the first master’s programme of its kind, and supports research and practice in performance art and site-specific, intimate and durational performance, as well as other forms of experimental practice.

The course is led by research leaders, industry professionals, and high-profile practising artists and is part of an exciting partnership of the Drama Department at QMUL with LADA.

MA Live Art student Molly Honer in front of a black background. A liquid is dropping out of her mouth onto a stack of ice cubes. MA Live Art student Molly Honer. Photo by Holly Revell
"Fundamentally I feel as though I have been treated as an artist as much as a student."

Following a launch event for the course in March 2018, in June 2019 we hosted an event at Queen Mary showcasing some of the student’s work and a day of presentations by invited artists, curators and producers discussing some of the issues of sustaining and developing a Live Art practice and other territories that the MA considers. Documentation of that day can be viewed here.

MA Live Art is a specialised programme of taught postgraduate study led by research leaders, industry professionals, and high-profile artists. Graduates will gain theoretical and practical grounding in histories and practices of Live Art, while developing professional capacities and networks. The programme is convened by the Drama Department at QMUL in collaboration with LADA.

Students will engage with and make performance in dialogue with genealogies of visual art and/or experimental theatre in the twentieth century. They will be enabled to understand, challenge and make Live Art as a technology for intervening in the most pressing issues of our time: of gender, sexual, racial or class identity; of the potential for protest, direct action, and environmental and social justice; and of theoretical investigations concerning the body, time, space, subjectivity, documentation and communication.

Students will learn through studio-based and discussion-led methods, through workshops, lectures, master classes, seminars, fieldwork and professional placements. The programme of study can be taken either full time (1 year) or part-time (2 years). Students on the programme will have access to QMUL’s full research and support services, as well as to LADA’s Study Room, which includes an archive of 7,000+ items.

Download details of the course and application procedures here.

View our image blog showcasing our first year of MA Live Art students.

Finn Love sitting on a table elegantly in the LADA Study room Finn Love in LADA Study Room, credit Billy Sassi

Banner image credit:

Becky O’Brien, Day and Night, credit Holly Revell

We are looking for a better quality image for this page or to replace it if it's missing.

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